{"id":233,"date":"2011-04-26T08:05:05","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T15:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/2011\/04\/26\/white-lion-the-african-legend-comes-to-dvd\/"},"modified":"2011-04-26T08:05:05","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T15:05:05","slug":"white-lion-the-african-legend-comes-to-dvd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/2011\/white-lion-the-african-legend-comes-to-dvd\/","title":{"rendered":"‘White Lion’: The African Legend Comes to DVD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WhiteLion.jpg\"<\/a>White Lion<\/em> is a magnificently lensed coming-of-age film that follows the titular white lion from cub to king. A 25-year labor of love from producer Kevin Richardson, who was also the lead animal wrangler, and director Michael Swan, the Screen Media Films release features cinematography that ranges from awe-inspiring panoramas of flat-topped mountains rising out of densely verdant valleys to closer shots of dew-dropped flowers glistening in the moonlight.<\/p>\n

The lion’s saga is related as a narration by an African storyteller (veteran actor John Kani) holding his audience of children in thrall around a campfire. While we return to the campfire from time to time to connect with the children and their reactions, the camera cuts away to what is essentially a nature film of the unfolding story: A white cub, Letsatsi, is born into a lion pride. Playful as any kitten, he has some close calls with hyenas and venomous snakes as romps in the tall grass. And just being different from a lion’s usual tawny color causes challenges for him with the other lions in his pride. He slowly learns the skills he needs to survive the natural perils of the wilderness \u2013 lightning-sparked fires, hidden dangers such as alligators in the river from which he must get water to drink \u2013 as well as meeting the basic need to find food. Humans pose yet another danger.<\/p>\n

Giving a framework for the story of Letsatsi’s life is a secondary story of Gisani, a native villager who has been raised with the traditional legends that revere the rare white lion as a messenger of the gods that brings peace and prosperity. Gisani is little more than a child when he first sees Letsatsi, and he takes on himself the responsibility for watching over the lion through the years, to be his storyteller. This culminates in a showdown with hunters who see value in Letsatsi only as a trophy.<\/p>\n

As a nature film, White Lion<\/em> is true to the genre in its honest depiction of the animals’ lives. Kills are acknowledged, although the camera takes a respectful view and avoids grisly sensationalism. Nor are there groomed manes or other attempts to prettify the animals. Life includes moments of heart-pounding adventure punctuating long days of quieter existence, and the film’s slow pace \u2013 with music as a low-key accompaniment \u2013 seems to capture life in real time.<\/p>\n

The DVD’s bonus feature on how the wranglers worked with the lions to capture authentic actions is a livelier piece, and the behind-the-scenes views add to rather than detract from an appreciation of the feature film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White Lion is a magnificently lensed coming-of-age film that follows the titular white lion from cub to king. A 25-year labor of love from producer Kevin Richardson, who was also the lead animal wrangler, and director Michael Swan, the Screen Media Films release features cinematography that ranges from awe-inspiring panoramas of flat-topped mountains rising out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvds-released","category-feature-film-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paS5I2-3L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/kidsfirstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}